An innovative pilot project called SeaCURE has launched on the south coast of England, bringing a new approach to the fight against climate change: absorbing carbon from seawater. The project is funded by the British government and is one of 15 experimental schemes aimed at developing technologies to capture and store greenhouse gases.
While scientists agree that reducing emissions is the top priority in the fight against global warming, some believe it is also necessary to capture gases that have already been released into the atmosphere, writes A2 CNN. Existing technologies focus on capturing carbon directly from the source or from the air, but SeaCURE is testing a different approach – absorbing carbon from the sea, where its concentration is about 150 times greater than in the atmosphere.
The project is located near the Weymouth Sealife Centre, where a long underwater pipe draws in seawater that is then processed to remove carbon. The process involves acidifying the water to convert dissolved carbon into CO₂ gas, which is then captured and concentrated using burnt coconut shells. The treated water, now low in carbon, is neutralised and returned to the sea, restarting the cycle of absorbing carbon from the atmosphere.
Currently, this project is able to remove about 100 tons of CO₂ per year – the equivalent of about 100 transatlantic flights – but the potential is much greater. According to scientists, if this technology were applied to just 1% of the ocean surface, up to 14 billion tons of CO₂ could be removed per year.
However, a major challenge lies in the energy needed for this process, which would need to come from renewable sources to be fully sustainable, such as floating installations with solar panels offshore.
Experts like Dr. Oliver Geden of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emphasize that carbon removal is necessary to achieve the goal of “zero emissions.” According to him, SeaCURE is just one of many options that will be determined by cost and environmental impact. (A2 Televizion)
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